The Wall Street Journal accidentally connects the dots between two current scandals making it plain that compensation issues are at the heart of management problems with US organizations: non-profit and for-profit, small and large.

Pulled down by an embezzlement scandal and a lightning rod for right-wing attacks, the deeper tragedy at Acorn is how Wade Rathke turned community organizing into a personality cult that prevented the emergence of a new generation of leadership.

Although the vast majority of Hawai'i's 5,000 public charities follow the rules and have financial safeguards in place, the Honolulu Advertiser thinks they should have to pay for the misdeeds of a few. There is no evidence offered to demonstrate that registration reduces fraud in other states.

Some in the legal profession seem to be stuck in an obsolete paradigm of compliance, transparency, and good board governance for nonprofits—while the accounting profession (and Sarbanes-Oxley) advocates a holistic approach with an integrated system of internal controls as its centerpiece.